FLORIDA DERBY : Duc d’Sligovil Gets Test Today

The morning of the Fountain of Youth Stakes on Feb. 27, Jeremy McNeill was standing on the Gulfstream Park backstretch, talking to exercise rider Cecil Paul.

A man in a Cadillac drove up and said to McNeill, “Do you need a job?”

The tall Jamaican broke into laughter, unable to answer.

“Don’t you know that this guy’s got the favorite in today’s stake?” Paul said.

The man in the Cadillac drove off and a few hours later, McNeill’s Duc d’Sligovil, one of only three horses that he trains, scored a 2 1/4-length victory in a division of the Fountain of Youth. Today, the 24-year-old trainer will try to win the $500,000 Florida Derby with the same gray colt, whose beginnings were as modest as his trainer’s.

McNeill was hired as a hot walker by Jack Van Berg, a Hall of Fame trainer, at Hollywood Park in 1990. McNeill’s father, Roy McNeill, a former minister of national security and justice in Jamaica, breeds and races horses, including Duc d’Sligovil. Roy McNeill had been Van Berg’s client in Kentucky.

Jeremy McNeill spent two years with Van Berg, also working as a groom and rubbing down horses. “Jeremy was a nice young man, and he’s turned into a good horseman,” Van Berg said. “He’s done a tremendous job with that horse. He wanted to learn when he was in California.”

The development of Duc d’Sligovil has not been without Van Berg’s input. In his early races, the horse had the habit of thinking the run was over if he was leading at the sixteenth pole. He would wait for other horses and that got him beat a few times.

Jockeys who had ridden Duc d’Sligovil told McNeill that blinkers might help. In two starts at Gulfstream with blinkers, Duc d’Sligovil has a perfect record. Overall, the cheaply bred colt has put together three victories, four seconds and three thirds with earnings of $183,249 in 10 starts.

Duc d’Sligovil, who will be ridden by Julie Krone, Gulfstream’s top jockey, is one of three horses at 6-1 on the Florida Derby’s morning line, behind Storm Tower at 3-1 and Living Vicariously at 4-1.

“I think he’s an underrated horse,” McNeill said. “He was 12-1 the day he almost won the Tropical Park Derby. I think his record speaks for itself. How many horses run this many times and never run a bad race? Luckily, the horse doesn’t know what his odds on the morning line are.”

McNeill, a 6-foot, 200-pounder who was a wide receiver in high school, saddled his first horse last summer at Calder. His three horses are owned by his parents, and three of his four victories were provided by Duc d’Sligovil. He has a chance to become the youngest trainer ever to saddle a Florida Derby winner.

Although his father, an attorney, wanted McNeill to become a lawyer or doctor, racing was always on the son’s mind. He came by that naturally, however, because his grandfather owned a track in Jamaica and raced horses there.

“I respect Jeremy’s choice of careers,” Roy McNeill said. “And it gives me great pleasure to see the patience and skill that he has with our horses. He went out and learned the hard way, and has earned everything that he has gotten. It is every horseman’s dream to have a colt worthy of starting in the Kentucky Derby. My dream is to have this colt give my son the opportunity to be one of the youngest trainers of the minority to have a horse in the Kentucky Derby.”

Roy McNeill and his wife, Grace, will not say how much they paid for Duc d’Sligovil, but it couldn’t have been much. The colt’s dam, Peppermint Day, was bought by Dick Scott, a Florida breeder, for $1,000 while she was in foal with Duc d’Sligovil. The sire, Sezyou, currently stands at stud at a farm near Ocala, Fla., for a $750 fee. The McNeills bought Duc d’Sligovil from Scott.

Duc d’Sligovil’s racing career began at Calder in July and he broke his maiden a month later, in his second start. That was the only victory the colt had before his two this winter at Gulfstream.

Krone is the fifth jockey to ride him. There has been a lot of musical chairs with jockeys and 3-year-olds in Florida this winter, and Craig Perret, who won with Duc d’Sligovil on Feb. 13 here, chose not to ride him back in the Fountain of Youth and Krone picked up that victory.

Forecasters said there is a 50% chance of rain at Gulfstream.